The vampire star doesn’t hold back when it comes to his image. His latest movie, “Cosmopolis” is set in a limo, where he lives with daily prostate examinations and customer visits.
Robert Pattinson is walking with a cup of coffee in one hand a red lollipop in the other hand at the hotel’s restaurant, at the rooftop in Cannes. He manages to not look like a moviestar which is very clever because everybody follows the moviestars in Cannes, and it’s like you can almost feel the air crackles of static electricity.
Then the director snared Pattinson, one of the hottest actors on the planet. But “Cosmopolis,” which opens locally Friday, is not a multiplex-ready entertainment or even a horror film. Based on a novel by Don DeLillo (“White Noise”), it’s a day in the life of a paranoid billionaire who runs his empire, beds his lover and checks his prostate in the back seat of a limo that’s circling Manhattan.
To get the movie made, Cronenberg, 69, had to enter the sanctum of the same kind of kingpin who is satirized in the movie.
“One of our investors in this film is known as the French Warren Buffet,” Cronenberg told me when I passed the distributor’s background check and was able to chat with him on the phone recently. “One of the reasons he wanted to get involved is because he says he deals with people like Robert’s character all the time. They live in a kind of bubble of unreality. They handle billions of dollars every day but they never really touch money. He felt that this story was strangely accurate.
The ace up Cronenberg’s sleeve was Pattinson, who attracted investors and then delivered a performance that leveraged his vampire persona from the “Twilight” movies. “I don’t mind the metaphor of a blood-sucking businessman,” Cronenberg said, “but by the end of the movie, as he’s thinking about his past and visiting his childhood barber, he’s a much more vulnerable character.
Here’s a new interview from Rob and David. Part of the interview was posted here
When the noted independent filmmaker, whose credits include A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), gave Pattinson the script for Cosmopolis — based on the Don DeLillo novel — the actor could see himself as Eric Parker, the 28-year-old billionaire asset manager whose world falls apart around him as he rides in his stretch limo to get a haircut while wagering his company’s massive fortune on a bet. But Pattinson had one problem.
“I was honest with David and said that I loved his script, but I didn’t fully understand it,” Pattinson says. “I knew, if I tried to have a BS conversation about it, that David would call me out.”
Cronenberg, too, had some reservations — about Pattinson. “Could this British guy do a New York accent where it’s not agonizing?” the filmmaker recalls wondering. “Could he play that age? Does he have the charisma to hold the audience for the whole movie, because he’s literally in every scene? “I did my homework and watched Little Ashes (2008) and Remember Me (2010),” Cronenberg says. “I even watched interviews that Robert did. I wanted to know what this guy was like when he was just being himself. I wanted to get a feel of what he was like as a person. I wanted to know that he had a sense of humor, and he does. “I finally said, ‘OK, this is the right guy.’ ”
Most of Pattinson’s films have required him to forgo his natural British accent, so he had no problem finding Eric’s New York speech patterns.
“I don’t even know what accent I was doing half of the time,” he admits. “I always found that the dialect was written in the lines. The voice was also part of the preparation. I wasn’t even trying to get a New York accent.”
His next film is, of course, the series-ending Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, due in November. Cosmopolis is nothing like that, which is by design. “I try to do something different from vampire Edward Cullen each time I’m not doing a Twilight film,” Pattinson says. “I even try to make him different each time I do Twilight.”
As a child growing up in London, Pattinson had dreams of stardom, but they involved music. That he ended up as an actor still bemuses him. “When I’m asked to write down my occupation, it’s still hard for me to write actor.”
After auditioning for Troy (2004) but not getting the part, Pattinson was cast in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) as the handsome, charming and doomed Cedric Diggory. Three years later, he began his turn as soulful vampire Edward Cullen. For “Twi-hards” dreading the end of the film franchise, Pattinson offers some words of hope. “I’m sure they’ll have a Twilight TV-series spinoff soon,” he says. “They’ll do it again.” That presumably wouldn’t involve Pattinson. There is talk of a film prequel, however. Would he be willing to play Edward again? “Who knows?” says Pattinson, laughing. “The only thing that creates a little bit of a problem is that I’m supposed to be 17 forever.
Once in a while, there are moments when you are watching a film where you feel completely uneasy – not so you’re going to throw up or walk out because you feel disgusted or violated, but where the tension just completely overwhelms you so that you’re grasping whatever you can to get over the unsettling feeling. Imagine that feeling for a whole 108 minutes, and that’s probably the best short description I could give you about nerve-wracking mastermind David Cronenberg’s newest movie “Cosmopolis.”
First off, anybody who puts down Robert Pattinson as an actor because of his Edward Cullen vampire history is a hater – straight up. The kid’s got major talent, proving it in “Cosmopolis.” He plays billionaire asset manager Eric Packer, a young sex addict who rides around New York City in his stretch limousine complete with a high-tech office, a hideaway toilet, and more than enough room for casual mid-day procreative endeavors.
Robert Pattinson
c/o Curtis Brown Group Ltd.
Haymarket House
5th Floor, 28-29
Haymarket
London, SW1Y 4SP
England
or
Robert Pattinson
c/o Endeavor Agency
Stephanie Ritz
9601 Wilshire Blvd. Floor 3
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
USA
Calendar
April 2026
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Partners
DISCLAIMER
Thinking of Rob is not affiliated with Robert Pattinson or his management in any way.
There is no copyright infringement intended on this blog. If you are the original owner of any media used and would like it removed, we will be happy to do so, please contact us.
Copyright and Trademark Notice
All original content on this site, including any manipulations or enhancements, is the sole copyright of ThinkingofRob™ and ToR™.